Friday, September 7, 2007

Busch Series at Richmond: In-Progress Race Comments

Tonight at 7:30 PM Eastern Time ESPN2 will carry a thirty minute version of NASCAR Countdown, and then the live Busch Series race from Richmond, VA.

This will be the location to post comments about the TV coverage while the programs are in-progress, and after the race. Please limit your comments to opinion and observations about the TV personalities, commentary, or production.

This has proven to be a great place for fans to comment while the race is going on, rather than wait until a full column is posted sometime later. Thanks to all of you for keeping your comments focused and interesting. Let's go racing.

To post a comment, simply click on the COMMENTS button below, and follow the simple instructions. You do not have to leave your email, sign-up for anything, or be a Google member.

Major thanks to ESPN for using the "TiVo" style format for Cup qualifying. I would gladly give up a few minutes of Busch pre-race to see all of the Cup cars run.

ESPN did a great job covering all the on-track action today, even pre-empting the first 2 hour episode of First Take to cover practice. It's just a shame that the NASCAR fans are gonna get the knife stuck deep in our backs next weekend. ESPN2 will cover qualifying, ABC will cover the race, ... and that's it. No practice coverage of any kind on ESPN2 or Speed Channel on Friday or Saturday.

SHAME ON ESPN. I don't blame them for choosing college football over Cup Happy Hour on Saturday, but I do blame them for screwing the fans over by not allowing Speed to cover it in their absence.

I see the ESPN Hype staff decided to throw in a few gratitous "big crash" videos during the discussion of Keselowski's wreck. Videos that had NOTHING to do with the actual conversation of course. It'd be nice if the production staff and announcers were on the same page.

The conversation about bad crashes would have been much better with some relevant video to go with the crashes Rusty and Andy Petree were describing. I'm sure newer fans would have liked some visual representation of Rusty's 1993 crashes at Daytona and Talladega and Ken Schrader's 1998 crash at Daytona. As a long-time fan of the sport I can visualize all 3 crashes they were describing with no problem. Unfortunately newer fans were left in the dark on this one.

Even when they brought up Ricky Rudd's crash from last week, ESPN followed up by rolling tape on Kyle Busch's Talladega crash and Jason Leffler's spring California crash.

Shaky producing there if you ask me. They must have gone over everything they discussed in rehearsal so it's not like the producers were caught off-guard by the crashes that got brought up in that discussion.

I always though Rusty's worst racing crash neither of the spectacular ones from 1993 but rather the one at Bristol in practice when he needed to be revived by the track safety team and (ironically) ESPN pit reporter Dr. Jerry Punch?

I've watched only 27 laps, but I can't take it anymore. Is it just me or does everyone wish DJ would retire, so he could move to the booth replacing Rusty. While they're at it, swap out AB for Punch. The "Doc" as he likes to call himself, swallows his words so you can't understand him, and he has no chemestry with Rusty and Andy.

The pit reporters are horrible. Shannon Spake makes me nervious to even watch, she seems to be on the edge of disaster. Same with the over the top perky Jamie Little. I guess ESPN has problems in every area.

One other thing, did anyone else notice they replayed the same segment with Jeff Burton in Cup qualifying???? Thanks for missing Elliott Sadler qualifying too.

I think this is what happened tonight, ESPN went back on the broadcast and repeated some of the cup qualifying then they seemed to skip the ones at the end. Maybe it was just DirectTV or something. Glad to see AB.

Petree and Punch sound like they are talking to each other. Rusty sounds like he's talking AT everyone. The broadcast sounds so disjointed because it's almost like Doc and Andy are in one booth, Rusty is in another, and no one is actually keeping up with the race itself.

Everything aobut ESPN's race production way way way better than anything I've seen from SPEED. It is amazin how poor a network whose sole focus is auto racing can't find people to commentate on a race that anyone other than a gear head geek can understand.

Umm...Erik, aren't the best people for broadcasting any sporting event ones who actually know the sport? This is not "NASCAR for Dummies" 90% of the people who watch NASCAR (or any sport) are regular viewers. How can you think that catering to the lowest common denomenator is the way to broadcast a race? That thinking is completely backwards.

Matt, umh, yeah, the problem with the so called experts is they can't describe what is going on during a race at all. ESPN was able to cherry pick the best people. Alan Bestwick is the best in the business. Nobody on that other minor network comes anywhere close.

I also do not understand the constant bashing of NASCAR Now. It beats the snot out of the daily NASCAR how on SPEED ... oops, thats right, they don't got a daily NASCAR show. That really shows what SPEED thinks about NASCAR fans. Where were they for Michigan? They could care less. Now, go watch your Pinks.

Why why why does espn make us suffer with Shannon Spake and Jamie Little. Victory lane was an embarrassment. Please espn give back your NASCAR package or have your people watch the Fox races. Now they know how to get it done, from the booth to the pits. They are the best. You are ruining the sport for us fans.

For the first time this season, ESPN's mediocre race coverage has made me livid. I am really starting to seriously HATE ESPN's directors.

As the cars crossed the finish line, the drop down menu listed the order. It was only on the screen for a couple of seconds, time enough to read the top four or five names. We then had several minutes of Kyle Busch burn outs, several commercials, the stupid question interview (How does it feel...duh?) and a promo for the Cup race. They totally ignored 42 teams in their haste to get to boxing.

How can NASCAR allow such poor regard for the viewer? In my opinion, the NASCAR media people are just as guilty as ESPN.

Everything aobut ESPN's race production way way way better than anything I've seen from SPEED. It is amazin how poor a network whose sole focus is auto racing can't find people to commentate on a race that anyone other than a gear head geek can understand.

Ah, so you're the guy at ESPN who thinks we need to have everything explained to use every single week.

Do you also tell the MLB crews to explain foul balls each time they televise a game and the NFL guys to explain about all the different ways a team can score points?

SPEED covers racing the right way.

ESPN covers it as if they don't undrestand it, so they assume no one else does, either.

And I'm getting sick of hearing Punch say "and we just got back to green racing" after they come back from a commercial during a yellow. Not once have they been honest about this issue. It seems that we miss at the very least one lap of green flag racing after a yellow because their commericals run long. Hey Punch, stop lying and let us know how many laps they completed since you went to commercial

@sophia--I know that they're in a room next door listening--well Helton is anyway. Not sure where Brian is. A few years ago when we still had The Rock, during the Busch race, the boys explained something that happened. We fans understood exactly what they were saying. Well, Helton came over to "correct" them and we (and the boys) were all confused! I wish I could remember what it was, but they also addressed the situation in the drivers meeting for the Cup race.

I think you are talking about the Busch race at Texas, when Brian Vickers "advanced" his position while being the leader of the race. There was good coverage that day by the booth guys and pit reporters with great replays. Unlike what we've seen from the world wide leader of mediocrity and pathetic reporting.Laurie

Yep, they came back from commercial and repeated a couple minutes of coverage from about 10 minutes earlier with Jeff Green finishing a qualifying lap and Jeff Burton's interview. Someone eventually woke up and realized what was happening, as in the middle of the repeated Burton interview, they cut instantly into the middle of Jeremy Mayfield's qualifying effort. More technical excellence from ESPN on display. Thanks guys!

As far as the Busch race coverage itself, I guess it was about average for them. Then again, it wasn’t very challenging, as it wasn’t a particularly exciting race. It was mostly follow-the-leader with Kyle Busch and/or Matt Kenseth up front all night.

Some random observations:

The 22 car was a big story during practice and qualifying after Mike Bliss had the run-in Morgan Shepherd during happy hour. As the race went on, Bliss was able to keep the wounded 22 car up in the top-10, and eventually finished 5th. Amazingly, ESPN (who covered the earlier practice incident extensively) chose to virtually ignore Bliss for almost the entire race!

I agree with the others who have commented here about Spake’s poor performance. She seems to try hard, but I don’t think she’s cutout for live pit road coverage during a race. Her victory lane interview was pretty dismal as well. I was hoping Kyle Busch would slap her (at least verbally) after her first question to him led off with: “It’s hard to believe, in 7 races you have led the most laps and ONLY visited victory lane twice…” Unfortunately, Kyle didn’t say anything! It seems like he’s been on his best behavior lately. I can only imagine how Tony Stewart would have responded to a “question” like that! It must be a major buzzkill to have to deal with these ESPN bozos in victory lane…

Rusty does a great “Baghdad Bob” impression whenever the 66 car or the 7 car is involved in an incident with another car on the track. It’s simply amazing that it’s almost never their fault. It’s always the other guy! Oh, and by the way, there are no American troops anywhere near Baghdad! I’m just waiting for the 66 and the 7 to wreck each other. How will Rusty assign blame then? I think his head might just explode. IT DOES NOT COMPUTE, IT DOES NOT COMPUTE!!! Last night, the production people were very helpful by carefully controlling the replays so we never got a good look at what really happened between the 66 and the 15…

Speaking of good ole Rusty, he seemed to be clueless about the imminent green-white-checkered finish after the red flag stoppage. He kept talking about a restart with 5 to go, oh no wait, there’s only 4 to go… Thankfully, Andy stepped in and explained that it was going to be a GWC.

It sure would have been nice to get some reaction from Carl Edwards, Mike Bliss, Matt Kenseth, etc. after the race.